May 112014
 
Singing the Brand Journalism Song

I’ve written frequently about brand journalism for a few years now on this site. But I’ve never written a song about it. That’s what healthcare PR and marketing firm MediaSource did recently. Agency president Lisa Arledge Powell gave a presentation on content marketing in healthcare at a PRSA event that included the “Brand Journalizer” song. […]

Apr 152014
 
Understanding Your Content Marketing Mix

Recently I read an excellent piece on content marketing from Jeremiah Owyang. It talks about understanding the different types of content that make up a comprehensive content marketing effort. I’ve found this kind of segmentation increasingly useful as clients become more sophisticated in their content marketing programs. Firstly, it’s helpful because despite its increasing popularity […]

Nov 062013
 
Rules for Effective Content Marketing

Earlier this week I read an excellent article from iMediaConnection. Author Antoine Boulin identified three sure ways to fail at so-called native advertising, messages that look more like editorial content than traditional advertising. Many hope this can become a much needed revenue stream for publishers. I’ve written about native advertising, also called sponsored content. It’s […]

Oct 252013
 
Content Marketing to Support Sales

Earlier this month my partner Marc Hausman spoke at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston, organized by Pulse Networks. As part of his address, the conference produced a video with Marc on five tips for aligning your content marketing efforts to support sales. Marc does a great job in the video distilling principles I’ve talked […]

Aug 292013
 
Brand Journalism and Content Marketing

Earlier this week I caught up with an old friend Roger Hughlett. Roger and I have known each other for many years — here’s a story from 2009 about some changes he was driving as assistant managing editor at the Washington Business Journal. A lot has changed since then. Earlier this year Roger made the […]

Jul 242013
 
Now That's Quality Content

Every week I work with clients to produce high quality content for their online properties. It’s not easy consistently producing content that accomplishes business objectives via thought leadership rather than overt promotion. When done well, a content marketing strategy can deliver most of the benefits of a traditional PR campaign. These include brand awareness, closer […]

Jul 102013
 
Brilliant Content Marketing Tactics -- Where's the Sales Component?

Part of my consulting role to clients is keeping an eye on marketing trends. While doing that recently I found an excellent presentation on B2B content marketing trends produced by the UK based agency Velocity Partners. The deck outlines five trends, which the authors call “Beyonds,” showing how B2B content marketing is evolving.  Tactically these […]

May 132013
 
Polycom Launches the Public Sector View

Great work for great clients — that’s the fundamental philosophy at my agency. Today a great client unveiled more great work when Polycom launched The Public Sector View. We’ve got a track record of success with this client. Three years ago, the BreakDowntheWalls site we designed and executed for TANDBERG won Best Corporate Blog honors […]

Apr 172013
 
Content Marketing, Big and Small

Is content marketing done differently depending on organization size? That’s the focus of a new study from the Content Marketing Institute. CMI defines an as over 1,000 employees. One of the reasons this study got my attention was because that dividing line roughly describes my agency’s two main types of clients. We tend to work […]

Apr 142013
 
What Exactly Does Content Marketing Mean?

The concept of content marketing is red hot these days when discussing effective communications. It’s not a new concept, and I’ve been discussing it on this site for almost two years. Lately the concept has reached the fully hyped phase. Like many terms that become hugely popular, content marketing can mean different things to different […]

Feb 272013
 
Content Marketing Requires Culture Shift

This week I read two stories talking about content marketing that got me thinking. One was from Mitch Joel at Six Pixels of Separation, and the other from Justin Case at  his blog Justin Case You Were Wondering (clever title, Justin)! Both are worth a click and a few minutes of your time. To paraphrase, […]

Nov 142012
 
2013 B2B Content Marketing Survey

Recently a comprehensive B2B content marketing survey was produced and released by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). MarketingProfs packs a lot of good info into their post, and the entire survey is available for download with free registration. MarketingProfs and CMI received responses from over 1,400 companies for this survey. So the findings […]